Beverly Hills, CA in its 2:30pm Study Session with the City Council has decided to move ahead with their proposed prohibition on the sales of flavored tobacco products and will introduce this tonight at their regular 7pm council meeting.

Tonight, August 6th at 6PM the city council in San Pablo will be receiving a presentation from staff regarding a flavor ban policy. Staff is seeking direction and input in crafting the language further and will present 3 options.

The San Pablo city council meeting just concluded with one council member in opposition to the idea of prohibiting the sales of flavored tobacco products in the city. This means staff has now received direction on writing a city-wide no-exemptions style flavor ban that includes menthol. When finished this ordinance will be introduced in a future city council meeting for its first reading.

The Policy Committee (with mayor Clarkson and council member Hudson, where the ordinance has been sent to be worked on) welcomes public input on the subject of the prohibition on sales of flavored tobacco products.

Thanks for being troopers today in the first stages of a flavor ban coming to town in Los Angeles County, Jay Love and John JJ Jenkins. You put a professional and respectable face on the vapor industry. You both did amazing, especially considering the time limit change to one minute and sitting around for hours with only limited entertainment. Now let's start preparing for battle.

Prior to the August 28th scheduled flavor ban hearing in Sacramento it may be crucial (and most certainly advisable!) to get a few business owners PER DISTRICT to ask their respective city council person for a 1:1 meeting to address your concerns about how the proposed flavor ban will impact your business, your employees, and the economy in the city.

The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors are going to introduce a full flavor ban (including menthol, cigars, small, cigars, chewing tobacco and vapor products). Once they pass it, the Board will urge EVERY CITY in the County to adopt a similar ban.

Here is a quick update on the flavor ban "study session" in Richmond which was held on January 30th, 2018. Kari Hess and I were there earlier tonight. Parts of the hearing were typical. Some parts were a little less so since it was meant to get indications on positions of various city council members.

The Richmond City Council will be conducting a study session to discuss policy options regarding amendments to the existing Tobacco Retail License (TRL) scheme. These amendments include a flavor ban component. According to the agenda item (K-2) we may have a reasonable shot at educating officials.

As you can read from a piece that was just published, titled "Supervisor hits hold button on flavored cigarette ban" the County of San Mateo has temporarily postponed the agenda item on the prohibition of the sales of flavored tobacco, including vapor products and electronic cigarettes.

Today at the Health & Safety Commission meeting in Beverly Hills CA the decision was made to instruct the city staff to start writing a flavor ban ordinance and to engage with local retailers and community on the issue and seek public input at a next hearing (February) at which a draft of the ordinance to prohibit the sales of flavored tobacco products will likely be presented.

On Tuesday the 23rd of January 2018 at 9:00AM the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors is looking to introduce an ordinance to prohibit the sale or offer for sale of flavored tobacco products and prohibit pharmacies from selling or offering for sale any tobacco products, and amending Section 4.96.30 of Chapter 4.96 to clarify the definition of “tobacco products”, and waive the reading of the ordinance in its entirety.